Installing to clean HDD from .iso file

**Asolepius** · March 3rd, 2013

Well I seem to be not even as expert as an absolute beginner! I tinkered with Ubuntu a few years ago and then got distracted. I had no problems installing it from a USB stick at that time. Now I want to start again, as I have a spare PC. It runs Phoenix Award BIOS. Because the HDD had some nasty errors I reformatted it in Windows 7 (before I decided to try Ubuntu again). This time though, I can't get even get it installed. The PC won't boot from the USB, although the BIOS has 3 options:

USB-HDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CD

Not sure what this means, and motherboard manual (Foxconn) is no help. So I have tried to burn a DVD, but it won't boot from that either (yes I did change the boot in BIOS). I am trying to follow the Ubuntu website instructions, which tell me to download the .iso file for Ubuntu. So far so good, but next the site tells me to right click (in Windows 7) and select the option to burn to DVD. I do not get this option in Windows. The DVD I have burned is not bootable - whatever I do the BIOS always says `bootmgr missing'.

Compared with my previous experience, installation has become vastly more complicated. Or have I misunderstood?

**fantab** · March 3rd, 2013

Ubuntu install is not complicated. If you are trying to burn the DVD from windows then you need Win32 Disk Imager. The Win32 Disk Imager's file browser assumes image files end with .img, so if the image-file you have selected ends with .iso, you will have to type its name in manually; this difference in suffixes is simply cosmetic however, the image will be written fine regardless. OR use UNETBOOTIN.

Before you burn the downloaded Ubuntu.iso check the integrity of the download by running MD5Sum Check.

In your case choose USB-HDD when you have to choose the boot device from BIOS.

Good Luck...

**mJayk** · March 3rd, 2013

Depends on the motherboard I believe USB-HDD is NOT what you want if you are booting from a usb stick believe it or not. It will detect the usb stick as an actual HDD. If it is a gigabyte motherboard (?) this problem is well known do a quick google gigabyte usb boot there are a few solutions depending on what you have at hand.

**Cheesemill** · March 3rd, 2013

On my Gigabyte mobo I have to choose the USB-HDD option. It's the only way I can boot from a USB stick.

**oldfred** · March 3rd, 2013

Actually on my Gigabyte motherboard it is under hard drives to find flash drive, not any of the USB options. So under f12 (one time boot key) I see my hard drives and if a bootable flash drive is plugged in before bootting, it shows the flash drive.

So is flash drive correctly installed with unetbootin or other installer and not just copied to flash drive?

**darkcrimson** · March 3rd, 2013

I've had issues with this in the past.

In the BIOS setup:
Change Hard Disk Priority to the USB drive. (it's set to the 2nd position by default, which is the reason you're unable to boot from it when selecting USB-HDD)
Change Boot Priority to USB HDD. (Which you can also select manually by holding down F12).

This will tell the computer that the HDD is actually your USB drive. As far as confirming whether or not Unetbootin properly installed the .iso to USB? You can always verify the contents or simply attempt to boot it from another machine.

Hope this helps.

**Asolepius** · March 3rd, 2013

Thanks guys. I'll need some time to work through all this. Busy week coming up - I'll check back here next weekend.

**darkcrimson** · March 3rd, 2013

It's no trouble at all. I hope you're able to get it working so you can enjoy the power of Ubuntu

**debodas** · March 3rd, 2013

If you have an ISO file, use Imgburn to burn the ISO to a dvd, then select the USB-CD boot option. It should work now.

**Asolepius** · March 12th, 2013

I have now created the Ubuntu DVD, but the problem lies with the PC. It won't try to boot from the USB whatever I do, and although it tries to boot from the DVD, it reports that the disk is not bootable. This is not true, as the disk boots into Ubuntu on another PC. The boot priority in BIOS only gives me the HDD and `bootable add-in cards', whatever that means. All very baffling. The BIOS detects the CD/DVD drive,and displays it on the main screen, but doesn't add it to the options for selecting the priority. Something very odd with the BIOS firmware. Can it be flashed to correct this?